The even-numbered years between Olympic Games provide U.S. track and field athletes with a break from championship-level competition. Two years before the Olympics and with no world meets on the schedule, 1994 was such a respite year.

While U.S. athletes were free to focus on the series of high-powered invitational meetings that constitute Europe’s Grand Prix circuit each summer season, Europeans aimed for the quadrennial European championships, staged in 1994 in Helsinki, Fin. In addition, athletes from nations composing the Commonwealth of Nations looked toward their own championships, held in Victoria, B.C.

Men’s International Competition

The records set during 1994 could be summed up as "the short and long" of the sport. A U.S. sprinter lowered the world mark in the 100-m dash, while runners from three African nations achieved record performances in the long distances. Leroy Burrell regained the 100-m record when he sped 9.85 sec in Lausanne, Switz. Burrell snipped the record from the 9.86 run in 1991 by Carl Lewis, his teammate on the Santa Monica (Calif.) Track Club. Lewis’ effort in 1991 had bettered the 9.90 Burrell had run only two months earlier. In mid-April, Burrell and Lewis had helped set the season’s first outdoor world record. The renowned pair joined their Santa Monica clubmates Michael Marsh and Floyd Heard to clock 1 min 18.68 sec in the 4 × 200-m relay, bettering the time of 1 min 19.11 sec run by the same quartet in 1992.

Both Burrell and Lewis, however, suffered early ends to their European summer seasons. A foot injury sidelined Burrell, while Lewis contracted a stomach virus from contaminated water. Both returned to their homes in Houston, Texas, and missed a number of major invitational meets at the height of the season.

The African distance runners all set their records in Europe. First to turn the trick was Haile Gebresilasie of Ethiopia in early June in Hengelo, Neth. The 1993 world champion at 10,000 m, Gebresilasie covered half that distance in a 5,000-m record time of 12 min 56.96 sec, eclipsing the mark of 12 min 58.39 sec run in 1987 by Morocco’s Said Aouita. Some six weeks later in Oslo, Norway, Kenya’s William Sigei--known more for his prowess in cross country--produced a surprising record in the 10,000 m. With his time of 26 min 52.23 sec, Sigei lowered the 1993 mark of 26 min 58.38 sec run on the same track by fellow Kenyan Yobes Ondicki--set in a race in which Sigei had placed second in his previous best time of 27 min 16.81 sec.

The third distance record, in the 3,000 m, was set in Monaco at the start of August by Algerian star Noureddine Morceli (see BIOGRAPHIES). Already the record holder at 1,500 m and one mile, Morceli clocked 7 min 25.11 sec to slash nearly four seconds off the 1992 mark of 7 min 28.96 sec established by Kenya’s Moses Kiptanui. The 1994 campaign was the first season since 1978 in which world records were set at 3,000, 5,000, and 10,000 m. Kenya’s Henry Rono had set the marks at all three distances in 1978.

Morceli later capped his season at the Grand Prix final in Paris. His victory in the 1,500 m gave him the highest point total in the season’s overall Grand Prix standings--worth a total of $130,000. Even though Kiptanui lost his official 3,000-m record, he broke the record at an unofficial distance, covering two miles in 8 min 9.01 sec. The Kenyan trimmed more than three seconds off the old best of 8 min 12.17 sec, run in 1993 by Khalid Skah of Morocco.

The lone field event record setter was no newcomer to that level of achievement. The peerless Ukrainian pole vaulter Sergey Bubka set his 17th outdoor mark when he cleared 6.14 m (20 ft 1 3/4 in) in the helpful altitude of Sestriere in the Italian Alps. It was the 35th career record for Bubka, the other 18 having been set indoors. His highest indoor vault, in 1993, measured one centimetre higher at 6.15 m (20 ft 2 in).

At the European championships Linford Christie of Great Britain won his third consecutive title at 100 m, while countrymen Colin Jackson (110-m high hurdles) and Steve Backley (javelin) successfully defended their titles. Olympic champions Fermin Cacho of Spain (1,500 m) and Dieter Baumann of Germany (5,000 m) added European victories to their collection of titles. At the Commonwealth Games Christie and Backley (competing for England), as well as Jackson (representing Wales), retained the titles they had first won in 1990. Earlier in the year, during the winter indoor season, Jackson twice set records over the 60-m high hurdles (7.36 sec, then 7.30). Russia’s Leonid Voloshin bounced to a triple-jump mark of 17.77 m (58 ft 3 3/4 in).

In race-walking events on the track outdoors, records for both official distances were set in the same Norwegian competition in early May. Mexico’s Bernardo Segura covered 20,000 m in 1 hr 17 min 25.5 sec, while France’s René Piller cut the best for 50,000 m to 3 hr 41 min 28.2 sec.

The outdoor track season concluded with the seventh staging of the World Cup, a team competition for national and continental squads. In London, two years after the previous World Cup in Havana. Africa’s men’s team retained its title, while an all-star team representing Europe won the women’s crown. The U.S. teams produced the worst American placings in the meet’s 17-year history--the men finishing sixth and the women eighth and last.

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